BOB AND JACK: A MINI-MEMOIR
by Allan R. Andrews
American Reporter Correspondent

This year, the list includes Joe Dimaggio and Pee Wee Reese from the world of baseball. A couple of great popular writers, Meg Greenfield and Shel Silverstein, also died in their 60's. Another great writer of fiction, Andre Dubus, also passed away, probably aware that the college he served for so long, tiny Bradford College in Haverhill, Mass., is also in its death throes.

Like most who've survived middle age, my silent reflection on the published lists of those who died in the year past is augmented by personal acquaintances. In 1999, it was Bob and Jack.

Unless one lived or worked in North Carolina in the '60s, '70s or '80s, one is not likely to know or remember Jack Aulis and Bob Brooks.

For several years, especially during the '70s, Aulis and Brooks were co-workers for the Raleigh News & Observer, Brooks as news editor and Aulis as chief copy editor, city editor and columnist. During a brief two-year tenure as a young reporter in Raleigh, I learned the craft from Bob and Jack.

Brooks taught me the seriousness of the profession we were in and the discipline of mind and heart it required. He was tireless, sharp, and better informed on most of the stories he sent his reporters out to cover than the reporters themselves. A native Tar Heel, he certainly knew more about Bob Scott, Roy Sowers and Robert Morgan -- state officials at the time -- than I did, though I had the beat. As one of Raleigh's current writers recalled, Brooks read the paper each day "like a Talmudic scholar."

I can see Brooks thumbing through his little black book where he kept notes and reminders, mostly about stories that had to be investigated. It seems to me as I look back in memory that Brooks was always on his feet; he managed from the standing position asking questions in all directions, grabbing a seat somewhere in the newsroom only to read through a draft of one of the day's lead stories. I suspect that later in his career, when he became managing editor, he had an office of his own, but as news editor he used the entire newsroom as his office.

Some of the remembrances and tributes I read about Brooks suggest he frequently scowled and gave people tongue-lashings. Perhaps, but that wasn't my experience. Brooks always was serious and pointed in his discussion of stories, but he was polite and friendly -- and impeccably dressed, too. I do recall that getting a compliment from Brooks was akin to winning a Pulitzer.

Mine came for something that had nothing to do with news. One of our copy editors at the time was marrying an editor from the Associated Press, which had its office down the hall from our newsroom. Photographer Martin Rogers covered the outdoor wedding, and he took me along as an assistant, letting me borrow one of his Nikons and a long lens to play with.

When we returned to the newsroom with our snapshots to share with colleagues who hadn't attended the ceremony, Brooks fingered through my sheaf of prints as if he were looking for live art for the day's paper.

He didn't use one, but he did say to me, "Hey, Al, these are pretty good images." His words, for me, might as well have been a Press Photographers Club citation, and for Brooks that was about as good as one would get.

Brooks died just before Thanksgiving. He was 78 and had been retired from the N&O for over a decade. I knew him only briefly, but I'll bet he read the paper with rabbinical zeal to the end.

Gordon Allan Aulis, known to everyone as "Jack," turned out to be my writing coach, whether by design or default I don't know. I just remember Jack took me under his wing - and he only had a left wing because he'd lost an arm on Iwo Jima -- and kept after me until my "ledes" (the critical first paragraphs of stories) were tight and professional.

Aulis also had a wonderful wry sense of humor and about the only thing he disdained was stupidity. At the same time, he taught me not to take myself or any of the self-important people I was covering too seriously. Jack wrote only occasionally during my time at the N&O, but it was clear he knew his way around words. After I left Raleigh, Aulis became a columnist, which is an indicator of how wise the N&O editors -- Brooks among them -- were in those days in recognizing talent.

He became regionally well-known after his newspaper career by applying his comic wit to nature and producing books with titles such as "Never Hug An Octopus" and "Eagles Have Bad Breath." He also helped to found the "Man Will Never Fly Society," a club that spoofed Wilbur and Orville Wright at Kitty Hawk and used its only meeting each year as an excuse for members to tell funny stories and share drinks. I can say I was there at the creation, though I didn't hang around long enough to join.

My retained persistent image of Aulis attests to his dexterity. In those days, we had to make two carbon copies of every story we filed. One went to the city desk, one went to AP down the hall, and the third went into some archival black hole. This meant that each reporter had several packets of carbon paper on his or her desk.

Slipping carbons between the papers on each take of a story was no mean task, but Aulis was the undisputed champ at this, perhaps because he had only one arm. I see Jack, with his pencil stuck between his teeth, stacking pages and carbon papers between his legs faster than a one-man band and zipping them into his typewriter with the speed of a zephyr. He probably typed one-handed as fast or faster than most in the newsroom, too.

Reading his obituary, I was surprised to learn that Aulis had been born in New Hampshire and spent his youth in Vermont, the state in which my two oldest sons were born. I'd never have taken him for a native Yankee; he wore North Carolina well.

Aulis died in May while undergoing surgery for an abdominal aneurism. He was 73.

I probably left Raleigh prematurely, but my father back in New York died during my tour there, my first marriage fell apart and I learned experientially that "Yankee" could be a derogatory word. Nevertheless, I learned some powerful journalism there, and a good bit of it came from knowing and working with Bob Brooks and Jack Aulis for a brief but meaningful time. They were models of what good journalism is about.

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